Tasting Notes:
After a long night of drinking, I hopped out of my taxi and I headed into the neighborhood conbini. Staring at the beer cooler, I finally reached out for a can Silk Yebisu, over six years after its original release. Silk Yebisu is an all malt beer, crafted with both wheat and barley malt, using aroma hops from Bayern, Munich.

A very wheaty aroma comes off the head as Silk Yebisu is poured into the glass. It’s very warm and light. In the glass, its color is a pure unclouded straw. On the first gulp, there’s a waviness to the taste: it’s full up front with wheat and hops, on the mid-palate things calm down, but on the back end, the bitterness of the hops kick in like grapefruit pith, with ever so slight hints of spiciness. The bitterness lingers long in the background like many Yebisu beers.

Silk Yebisu is a wheat beer of Japanese lineage, rather than the presently popular Belgian style beers. It’s very straight forward, with subtle complexities that are difficult to pick up. True to is name, Silk Yebisu is just that. I first tried Silk Yebisu in 2009 while it was still a limited release, and before I started writing this blog. For me, this beer is old school and is one of the beers that brought me towards writing about limited production Japanese beers. Thanks Silk Yebisu!